Category: Fantasy

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Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories


Adapted by Shiro Amano translated by (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-67-37-8

Regular readers (if any of you are still alive out there and not bored to death by my pithy ramblings) will already know that I am utterly immune to computer and video games. Nevertheless the industry has generated some intriguing comics material and occasionally I’ll take a peek at what you youngsters are spending your cash on…

Kingdom Hearts is a series of games which stars a new young hero named Sora working in combination with characters and scenarios from Disney’s globe-girdling cinematic canon and elements of the Fighting Fantasy electronic franchise.

This plucky lad travelled to different realms trying to rescue his two best friends Riku and Kairi who had fallen into the cracks between worlds after a wave of Darkness enveloped all the myriad worlds of creation and wicked creatures named The Heartless were unleashed on the kid’s idyllic land of Destiny Islands.

Once the many Realms were separate; barred to each other by Dark Doorways, with a single Chosen One who carried an ultimate key to all locks, able to pass easily between them.

In his quest Sora was joined by Donald Duck, Goofy and Jiminy Cricket who were similarly searching for their lost King Mickey. During the saga Sora came into possession of the fabled Keyblade which can hurl back the Heartless and unlock all doors…

The comic tie-in Kingudamu Hātsu began in 2003 as a serial in Square Enix’s Japanese Monthly Shōnen Gangan before making the inevitable jump to book collections. Subsequent game releases have been similarly incorporated into the print adventures.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memory – which bridges the gap between the first and second games – opens with Riku and Mickey having sacrificed themselves to keep Ansem, the mastermind behind the chaos, sealed behind the  Doorway to Darkness (trapping themselves there as well) and Sora, Jiminy, Donald and Goofy still searching for a way to rescue them.

In their travels the questers encounter a mysterious stranger who directs them to the Castle Oblivion, but on entering they find that the eerie citadel is stealing their memories, making the shadowy stranger’s confusing predictions and warnings even harder to decipher…

Unaware that they are being manipulated by a shady cabal called Organization XIII, the assembled heroes travel to more incredible worlds with the aid of “Memory Cards” arriving in seedy Traverse Town where the heroic Leon helps them defeat a marauding band of Heartless, after which they are accosted and tested by the sinister Axel before arriving in the Arabian town of Agrabah just in time to assist Aladdin and Princess Jasmine in their struggle against the nefarious Jaffar…

Meanwhile on the other side of the Dark Divide Riku is being tempted and tested by the forces of Evil, but at least he has the indomitable strength of the ghostly King Mickey to help him resist the terrors and seductions of the Disney witch Maleficent and the charismatic Ansem…

Fast-paced and engaging, this tale offers some fascinating moments for fans of classic Disney movies and the Fighting Fantasy universe, but generally it reads like a computer game (probably, to be fair,  Shiro Amano’s intention and brief) so if you’re a narrative purist the ride is likely to feel confused, bumpy and little information-intense in all the wrong places.

If you’re open-minded and clear-headed there’s joy to be gleaned from this peculiar all-ages tome but I rather suspect that more traditional fans might prefer to leave their assorted media unalloyed and sedately separated…
Original manga by Shiro Amano/Enterbrain Inc. © Disney. Characters from Final Fantasy © 2005 Square Enix Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. English translation © 2006 TokyoPop Ltd.

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Shrine of the Morning Mist volume 1


By Hiroki Ugawa, translated and adapted by Jeremiah Bourque & Hope Donovan(TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-343-4

Most manga can be characterised by a fast, raucous and even occasionally choppy style and manner of delivery but the first volume of Hiroki Ugawa’s atmospheric supernatural thriller and moody saga of young love takes its time to get all the elements in play rather than simply steaming in all guns blazing.

Set in the city of Miyoshi in Hiroshima Prefecture (noted for its shrines and beautiful mist-draped landscapes) Asagiri no Miko or Shrine of the Morning Mist first appeared as a serial in the monthly periodical Young King Ours, running eventually to five volumes of eerie mystery, romance comedy and demonic action.

The saga opens here in traditional portentous manner and carefully unfolds the story of young Yuzu Hieda, one of three sisters who are hereditary Miko (a combination of shamans, mediums and priestesses attached to Shinto shrines and temples) attending to the local places of worship.

The sisters are especially gifted with special powers to combat the supernatural threats that menace the locality.

Little more than a teenager herself, schoolgirl Yuzu is troubled by the return of her childhood sweetheart and cousin Tadahiro Amatsu who, after five years away, has come home only to be targeted by evil forces. Despite being teased by sisters Tama and Kurako Yuzu accompanies them to the railway station just in time to save the lad from a sinister, sorcerous old man obsessed with the boy’s blood.

Invited to stay in the Miko’s home the withdrawn boy is disquieted by the teasing and references to his past relationship with Yuzu, but the father of the house proves to be a far-more unforgiving prospect…

Mystic forces are gathering round the introspective, solitary boy – with repercussions felt as far away as Tokyo – and over their dad’s objections Tadahiro is pressured into staying at the Hieda home where he can be properly protected. However next morning when the girls are at school a monolithic, cyclopean demon attacks the house. The assault is instantly perceived by Yuzu who dashes back to save him only to find her long-absent mother already there, having driven off the dark “kami”.

Well, one of them, at least…

Typically even Mother Miyuki thinks Tadahiro and Yuzu are a perfect, predestined couple…

With questions swirling about him, such as “why is everybody so interested in his blood” and “whatever happened to his own parents” the shell-shocked Tadahiro is blissfully unaware that the Miko are forming a protective Council around him, but even he knows something is up when the dark newcomer Koma introduces herself and reveals that she intimately knew his long-departed father…

To be continued…

This uncharacteristically slow-paced, contemplative and almost elegiac tale mystery was partially inspired by a classical tale recorded on the Inō Mononoke scroll and Hiroki Ugawa’s beautiful illustration perfectly captures a sense of brooding ancient powers at war, even during the most juvenile set-piece moments of awkward young romance and generational embarrassment comedy.

A slightly off-beat but intriguing tale for older readers, this black and white volume is printed in the Japanese right-to-left, back to front format.
© 2001 Hiroki Ugawa. All rights reserved. English text © 2006 TokyoPop inc.

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Showcase Presents Blackhawk volume 1


By anonymous, Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1983-3

The early days of the American comicbook industry were awash with both opportunity and talent and these factors also coincided with a vast population hungry for cheap entertainment. Comics had no acknowledged fans or collectors; only a large, transient market-place open to all varied aspects of yarn-spinning and tale-telling – a situation which maintained right up to the middle of the 1960s.

Thus, even though loudly isolationist and more than six months away from active inclusion in World War II, creators like Will Eisner and publishers like Everett M. (“Busy”) Arnold felt that Americans were ready for the themed anthology title Military Comics.

Nobody was ready for Blackhawk.

Military Comics #1 launched on May 30th 1941 (with an August cover-date) and included in its gritty, two-fisted line-up Death Patrol by Jack Cole, Miss America, Fred Guardineer’s Blue Tracer, X of the Underground, the Yankee Eagle, Q-Boat, Shot and Shell, Archie Atkins and Loops and Banks by “Bud Ernest” (actually aviation-nut and unsung comics genius Bob Powell), but none of the strips, not even Cole’s surreal and suicidal team of hell-bent fliers, had the instant cachet and sheer appeal of Eisner and Powell’s “Foreign Legion of the Air” led by the charismatic Dark Knight of the airways known only as Blackhawk.

Chuck Cuidera, already famed for creating the original Blue Beetle for Fox, drew ‘the Origin of Blackhawk’ for the first issue, wherein a lone pilot fighting the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 was shot down by Nazi Ace Von Tepp; only to rise bloody and unbowed from his plane’s wreckage to form the World’s greatest team of airborne fighting men…

This mysterious paramilitary squadron of unbeatable fliers, dedicated to crushing injustice and smashing the Axis war-machine, battled on all fronts during the war and stayed together to crush international crime, Communism and every threat to democracy from alien invaders to supernatural monsters, becoming one of the true milestones of the US industry. Eisner wrote the first four Blackhawk episodes before moving on and Cuidera stayed until issue #11 – although he triumphantly returned in later years.

There were many melodramatic touches that made the Blackhawks so memorable in the eyes of a wide-eyed populace of thrill-hungry kids. There was the cool, black leather uniforms and peaked caps. The unique, outrageous – but authentic – Grumman F5F-1 Skyrocket planes they flew from their secret island base and of course their eerie battle-cry “Hawkaaaaa!”

But perhaps the oddest idiosyncrasy to modern readers was that they had their own song (would you be more comfortable if we started calling it an international anthem?) which Blackhawk, André, Stanislaus, Olaf, Chuck, Hendrickson and Chop-Chop would sing as they plummeted into battle (to see the music and lyrics check out the Blackhawk Archives edition); just remember this number was written for seven really tough leather-clad guys to sing while dodging bullets…

Quality adapted well to peacetime demands: Plastic Man and Doll Man lasted far longer than most Golden Age superhero titles, whilst the rest of the line adapted into tough-guy crime, war, western, horror and racy comedy titles. The Blackhawks soared to even greater heights, starring in their own movie serial in 1952. However the hostility of the marketplace to mature-targeted titles after the adoption of the self-censorious Comics Code was a clear sign of the times; as 1956 ended Arnold sold most of his comics properties and titles to National Publishing Periodicals (now DC) and set up as a general magazine publisher.

Many of the purchases were a huge boost to National’s portfolio, with titles such as GI Combat, Heart Throbs and Blackhawk lasting uninterrupted well into the 1970s (GI Combat survived until in 1987), whilst the unceasing draw and potential of characters such as Uncle Sam, the assorted Freedom Fighters costumed pantheon, Kid Eternity and Plastic Man have paid dividends ever since.

This commodious monochrome collection covers the first National-emblazoned issue (#108, January 1957) through #127 (August 1958) which saw the Air Aces hit the ground running in a monthly title (at a time when Superman and Batman were only published eight times a year) and almost instantly established themselves as a valuable draw in the DC firmament.

Regrettably many of the records are lost so scripter-credits are not available (potential candidates include Ed “France” Herron, Arnold Drake, George Kashdan, Jack Miller, Bill Woolfolk, Jack Schiff and/or Dave Wood) but the art remained in the capable hands of veteran illustrators Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera: a team who meshed so seamlessly that they often traded roles with few any the wiser…

Moreover although broadly formulaic the gritty cachet, crime and Sci Fi underpinnings and international jurisdiction of the team always allowed great internal variety within the tales, so with three complete adventures per issue, this terrific tome is a joyous celebration and compelling reminder of simpler yet more intriguing times.

The action begins with ‘The Threat From the Abyss’ an old-school “Commie-Stomper” yarn wherein the Magnificent Seven put paid to a sinister subsea Soviet rocket base, after which ‘Killer Shark’s Secret Weapon’ stuck with the watery theme as the Blackhawks’ greatest foe returned with another outrageous mechanical masterpiece to aid his piratical schemes. Issue #108 concludes with ‘The Mutiny of the Red Sailors’ wherein a mass-defection of Russian mariners in Hong Kong proved to be a cunning scheme to destroy the British Colony.

‘The Avalanche King’ detailed the struggle against Red infiltrators in South America, ‘Blackhawk the Sorcerer!’ saw the team discover a lost outpost of Norman knights who had missed the invasion of England in 1066 and ‘The Raid on Blackhawk Island’ pitted the squad against their own trophies as an intruder invaded their secret base and turned a host of captured super-weapons against them.

Blackhawk #110 opened with ‘The Mystery of Tigress Island’ as the doughty lads battled an all-girl team of rival international aviators, ‘The Prophet of Disaster’ proved to be not a seer but simply a middle Eastern conman and ‘Duel of Giants’ pitted the team against a deranged scientist who could enlarge his body to blockbuster proportions.

‘The Menace of the Machines’ found the heroes battling the incredible gimmicks of a Hollywood special effects wizard who had turned to crime, ‘The Perils of Blackie, the Wonder Bird’ featured the team’s incredible feathered mascot who cunningly turned the tables on the spy-ring which had captured him whilst ‘Trigger Craig’s Magic Carpet’ proved once again that Crime Does Not Pay but also that even ancient sorcery was no match for bold hearts and heavy machine-guns…

‘The Doomed Dogfight’ opened #112 as a Nazi ace schemed to rerun his WWII aerial duel against Blackhawk; criminal counterpart squadron ‘The Crimson Vultures’ proved to be no match for the Dark Knights and ‘The Eighth Blackhawk’ was nothing more than a dirty traitor… or was he?

‘The Volunteers of Doom’ found the team uncovering sabotage whilst testing dangerous super-weapons for the US Government and ‘The Saboteur of Blackhawk Island’ only appeared to be one of the valiant crew before ‘The Cellblock in the Sky’ found the heroes imprisoned by a disenchanted genius in floating cages – but not for long…

‘The Gladiators of Blackhawk Island’ saw a training exercise co-opted by criminals with deadly consequences whilst costumed criminal the Mole almost enslaved ‘20,000 Leagues Beneath the Earth’ and Blackie was transformed into a ravening and uncontrollable menace in ‘The Winged Goliath’.

In ‘The Tyrant’s Return’ a group of Nazi war criminals rallied sympathisers around a new Hitler, ‘Blackie Goes Wild’ saw the gifted raptor  revert to savagery but still thwart a South American revolution whilst ‘The Creature of Blackhawk Island’ saw a extra-dimensional monster foolishly begin smashing through to our reality on the most heavily fortified military base on Earth…

As ‘The Prisoners of the Black Palace’ the old comrades crushed a criminal scheme to quartermaster the entire international underworld, Blackhawk became ‘The Human Torpedo’ to eradicate a sea-going gangster but ended up in contention with a race of mermen, and old Hendrickson became ‘The Outcast Blackhawk’ after failing his annual requalification exams…

Blackhawk #117 began with the team tackling what seemed to be a lost tribe of Vikings in ‘The Menace of the Dragon Boat’ before becoming the targets of a ruthless mastermind in ‘The Seven Little Blackhawks’ and battling a chilling criminal maniac in ‘The Fantastic Mr. Freeze’.

‘The Bandit with 1,000 Nets’ proved to be yet another audacious thief with a novel gimmick whereas the Pacific Ocean was the real enemy when an accident marooned ‘The Blackhawk Robinson Crusoes’ as they hunted the nefarious Sting Ray, before ‘The Human Clay Pigeons’ found the team helpless targets of international assassin and spymaster the Sniper.

A time-travel accident propelled the aviators back to the old West in ‘Blackhawk vs Chief Black Hawk’ and on their return Frenchman Andre inherited a fortune and became ‘The Playboy Blackhawk’ before being kicked off the team. However he was happily back for the all-out dinosaur action of ‘The Valley of the Monsters’…

‘The Challenge of the Wizard’ led in #120 as the crew tackled an ingenious stage magician whilst a well-meaning kid made plenty of trouble for them when he elected himself ‘The Junior Blackhawk!’ before the sinister Professor tricked the heroes into re-enacting ‘The Perils of Ulysses’ with deadly robotic monsters.

‘Secret Weapon of the Archer’ pitted the team against a fantastic attention-seeking costumed menace, whilst ‘The Jinxed Blackhawk’ found the team struggling against bad luck, superstition and a cunning criminal before ‘Siege in the Sahara’ saw them imitating Beau Geste whilst rescuing hijacked atomic weapons from bandit chieftain the Tiger…

‘The Movie that Backfired’ started out as a biopic but developed into a mystery when criminals began making murderous alterations to the script, ‘The Sky Kites’ found the squad battling aerial pirates The Ravens and ‘The Day the Blackhawks Died’ saw the deadly Cobra lay a lethal trap unaware that he was the prey not the predator…

Killer Shark returned to unsuccessfully assault ‘The Underseas Gold Fort’, more leftover Nazis resurfaced to solve a ‘Mystery on Top of the World’ that involved the location of the Reich’s stolen gold and Blackhawk became ‘The Human Rocket’ to thwart an alien invasion.

In issue #124, figures from history were robbing at will and even the Blackhawks were implicated but the ‘Thieves With a Thousand Faces’ proved to be far from supernatural whilst ‘The Beauty and the Blackhawks’ saw shy Chuck apparently bamboozled by a sultry siren whilst ‘The Mechanical Spies From Space’ attempted to establish an Earthly beachhead but were soundly defeated by the Magnificent Seven’s unique blend of human heroism and heavy ordnance.

‘The Secrets of the Blackhawk Time Capsule’ proved an irresistible temptation for scientific super-criminal the Schemer whilst ‘The Sunken Island!’ hid a lost Mongol civilisation in the throes of civil war and ‘The Super Blackhawk’ saw an atomic accident transform the group’s leader into a all-powerful metahuman… unfortunately it did the same for the Mole and his entire gang too…

‘The Secret of the Glass Fort’ revisited the idea as the entire team temporarily received superpowers to battle alien invaders whilst The Prisoner of Zenda provided the plot for ‘Hendrickson, King For a Day’ as the venerable Dutchman doubled for a missing monarch and ‘The Man Who Collected Blackhawks’ quickly learned to regret using his shrinking ray on the toughest crime-fighters in the World…

This stupendous selection climaxes with issue #127: starting with ‘Blackie – the Winged Sky Fighter’ wherein the formidable hawk rescued his human colleagues from an impossible death-trap, after which strongman Olaf took centre-stage as ‘The Show-Off Blackhawk’ when a showbiz career diverted his attention from the most important things in life and the manly monochrome marvels conclude when a criminal infiltrating the squad disguised as American member Chuck seemingly succeeds in killing the legendary leader in man ‘The Ghost of Blackhawk’.

These stories were produced at a pivotal moment in comics history: the last great outpouring of broadly human-scaled action-heroes in a marketplace increasingly filling up with gaudily clad wondermen and superwomen. The iconic blend of weary sophistication and glorious, juvenile bravado where a few good men with wits, firearms and a trusty animal companion could overcome all odds was fading in the light of spectacular scenarios and ubiquitous alien encounters.

For this precious moment though these rousing tales of the miracles that (extra) ordinary guys can accomplish are some of the early Silver Age’s finest moments. Terrific traditional all-ages entertainment and some of the best comics stories of their time, these tales are forgotten gems of their genre and I sincerely hope DC finds the time and money to continue the magic in further collections.

And so will you…

© 1957, 1958, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Werewolf


By Richard Corben & friends (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 0-87416-007-3             Del Rey edition ISBN: 978-0-34548-311-9

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest living proponents of comic strip storytelling: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist springing, as so many have, from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in sequential narrative with an unmistakable style and vision. He is equally renowned for his mastery of the airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and his delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Until relatively recently Corben steered clear of the Fights ‘n’ Tights comicbook mainstream. He hasn’t sold out – it’s simply that American funnybooks have grown mature enough to accommodate him, due in no small part to his pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontented older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Mummy and her lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creative impulses honed by ultra-graphic and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben all responded with a variety of small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – that featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired and enhanced cartoons and strips that mixed the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… making the kind of stories that they would like to read…

Corben’s work began to appear in more professionally produced venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing’s Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and graphically outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He also famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal. Soon he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped making comics but preferred his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe his short pieces were regularly collected in albums such as this moody and manic midnight melange that gathered his assorted dabblings with the iconic global curse of lycanthropy into one masterful edition, before selling it back to the Yanks…

I’m reviewing my beloved and spiffy Catalan Communications hardback edition, complete with affectionate introductory tribute from fellow artistic superstar Gaetano Liberatore, but if you can’t find that or the subsequent softcover, as they are both regrettably out-of-print and tricky to find, there was a soft-cover re-release from Del Rey in 2005 that is a bit more accessible and just as good.

Corben regularly revisited old works, adding colour to black and white tales or refining rough edges, but this collection opens with an early strip that is deliciously raw and edgy in blocky monochrome…

‘Dead Hill’ is a dark and punchy taster to set the ball rolling: a saga of vulpine cross-and-double-cross, before the airbrush colour of ‘The Beast of Wolfton’ regales us with the hilariously sardonic and nihilistic tale of a beast that haunts a medieval manor seeking vengeance for the extermination of his kind and the deeply put-upon Lady who finds little to differentiate between the hairy slavering brute and her husband who hunts it with such passion…

Corben returned to that milieu for the nominal sequel ‘Spirit of the Beast’ as the tortured spawn of the werewolf sought penance and forgiveness for his family’s curse, but reckoned without the seductive power of true Evil…

Corben’s infamous signature-stylisation includes acres of male and female nudity, excessive, balletic violence and nigh-grotesquely proportioned male and female physiques, and these are all readily in your face in a full-frontal, chilling and clever interpretation of Red Riding Hood re-imagined here as ‘Roda and the Wolf’.

A brace of wolf-manly sagas first crafted in 1973 for Warren’s horror anthology Creepy follows; beginning with the severed-tongue-in-cheek shocker ‘Lycanklutz’ after which Doug Moench stumps up a Halloween teaser in ‘Change… into Something Comfortable’ and the whole hirsute Hall of Horrors concludes with the John Pocsik scripted Puritan immorality play ‘Fur Trade’.

Richard Corben is a unique visual stylist blessed with a love of the dark and graced with a scathingly sharp sense of humour. Combine that with the World’s apparently insatiable hunger for hairy monsters and this book is just the aperitif any fan needs to start the night right…
© 1979-1984 Richard V. Corben. © 1984 Doug Moench for “Change into Something Comfortable”. © 1984 John Pocsik for “Fur Trade”. Introduction © 1984 Gaetano Liberatore. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Warlord volume 1


By Mike Grell, with Vince Colletta & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-2473-8

During the troubled 1970s the American comics industry suffered one of the worst of its periodic downturns and publishers desperately cast about for other genres to bolster the flagging sales of superhero comics.

By revising their self-imposed industry code of practice (administered by the Comics Code Authority) to allow supernatural and horror comics, the publishers tapped into the global revival of interest in spiritualism and the supernatural, and as a by-product opened their doors to Sword-and-Sorcery as a viable genre, with Roy Thomas and Barry Smith’s adaptation of R. E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian an early exemplar.

DC launched a host of titles into that budding market but although individually interesting nothing seemed to catch the public’s eye until number #8 of the company’s latest try-out title First Issue Special.

In that issue popular new Legion of Super-Heroes artist Mike Grell launched his pastiche, homage and tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s works (particularly Pellucidar – At the Earth’s Core) which, after a rather shaky start (like Conan, the series was cancelled early in the run but rapidly reinstated) went on to become for a time DC’s most popular title.

Blending swords, sorcery and super-science with spectacular, visceral derring-do, the lost land of Skartaris was a venue expertly designed for adventure: stuffed with warriors, mythical creatures, dinosaurs and scantily-clad hotties. How could it possibly fail?

This first stupendous black and white compendium, gathers 1st Issue Special #8 (from November 1975) and Warlord #1-28 (January-February 1976 – December 1979) and delivers wild wonder and breathtaking thrills from the outset.

The magic commences with ‘Land of Fear!’ as in 1969, U2 spy-pilot Colonel Travis Morgan is shot down whilst filming a secret Soviet base. The embattled aviator manages to fly his plane over the North Pole before ditching, expecting to land on frozen Tundra or pack-ice the right side of the Iron Curtain.

Instead he finds himself inside the Earth, marooned in a vast, tropical jungle where the sun never sets. The incredible land is populated by creatures from every era of history and many that never made it into the science books. There are also cavemen, savages, lost races, mythical beasts, barbaric kingdoms and fabulous warrior-women.

Plunging head-on into the madness the baffled airman saves an embattled princess from a hungry saurian before both are captured by soldiers. Taken to the city of Thera, Morgan is taught the language by his fellow captive Tara and makes an implacable enemy of the court wizard Deimos. After surviving an assassination attempt the pair escape into the eternal noon of the land beneath the Earth.

Within months Morgan had his own-bimonthly title written, pencilled and inked by Grell. ‘This Savage World’ saw the lost airman and the Princess of Shamballah fall deeply in love, only to be separated by slavers who leave Morgan to die in #2’s ‘Arena of Death.’ After a stint as a galley slave, Morgan, with Nubian warrior Machiste, led an insurrection of Gladiators which became a full-scale revolution, earning him the title of The Warlord in the process.

However, after this issue the series vanished for months until October-November 1976.

Morgan returned in all his gory glory in #3’s ‘War Gods of Skartaris’, leading his army of liberation and hunting for Tara until he stumbled across his downed aircraft – worshipped as a god by lizard-men and stuffed with lots of twentieth century ordnance… Moreover it had crashed into a temple that gave the first clues to the incredible secret of the lost land…

‘Duel of the Titans’ saw the Warlord’s army lay siege to Thera, where Deimos had seized power and held Tara hostage. The mage’s sorcery was no match for high explosives and inevitably he lost his life to Morgan’s flashing blade.

Warlord #5 saw the reunited lovers heading for Tara’s home city Shamballah, discovering en route ‘The Secret of Skartaris!’ in a lost temple that held millennia-old computer records revealing the entire land to be a lost colony of Atlantis, with much of the magic of the timeless region nothing more than advanced technology. When one such dormant device rocketed Morgan away Tara thought her man was gone forever…

‘Home is a Four-Letter Word!’ saw the displaced aviator returned to the surface-world with eight years gone by since his crash; emerging from a lost outpost in the Andes where a multi-national excavation was being conducted in the Incan ruins of Machu Pichu.

However the scientists used Morgan’s dog-tags to contact his CIA superiors and the suspicious spooks assumed he had defected all these years ago: especially since one of the archaeologists was comely soviet researcher Mariah Romanova… When the intransigent spymasters roused a demonic watchdog Morgan’s only chance was to head back to Skartaris with Mariah in tow…

Back in the temple again, the day he spent on Earth had somehow translated into an interminable time within it. Tara was long gone and Morgan elected to follow her to Shamballah. Stopping in the city of Kiro Morgan and Mariah saved the Warlord’s old comrade Machiste from the insidious horror of ‘The Iron Devil’, after which the trio voyaged together: attacked by cyborg vampires from ‘The City in the Sky’ and braving ‘The Lair of the Snowbeast’, wherein Morgan discovered a unique benefactor and a tragically brief kind of love…

Warlord #10 saw the opening sally in a long-running saga as the ‘Tower of Fear’ found the trio aiding a maiden in distress and inadvertently restoring the underland’s greatest monster to life. ‘Trilogy’ in #11 features a triptych of vignettes to display conflicting aspects of the Warlord’s complex character, after which ‘The Hunter’ pitted the wandering warriors against a manic, vengeful CIA agent who had followed Morgan to Skartaris and ‘All Men Are Mine’ saw the gravely wounded Warlord battle the very personification of death.

Issue #15 ‘Holocaust’ (inked by Joe Rubinstein) marked the series’ advancement to a monthly schedule and finally reunited Morgan and Tara in Shamballah. The obtuse warrior was stunned to see Mariah heartbroken by the couple’s joy, resulting in hers and Machiste’s incensed departure. The biggest shock, though, was Morgan’s introduction to his son, Joshua. However he didn’t have much time to dwell as the city began to explosively self-destruct. As Morgan and Tara tackled the major crisis Deimos struck, abducting the baby…

Vince Colletta came aboard as regular inker with the beginning of ‘The Quest’ as Morgan and Tara hunted down the undead sorcerer starting with ‘Visions in a Crimson Eye’, battling Deimos’ minions and rival magicians, encountering the desert-locked ‘Citadel of Death’ (which revealed some intriguing Skartaran history from the Age of the Wizard Kings) before being briefly distracted by alien invaders in ‘Bloodmoon’.

Scouring Skartaris, Tara and Morgan were reunited with Mariah and Machiste in ‘Wolves of the Steppes’ after which the quartet braved Deimos’ fortress in ‘Battlecry’ as the unliving savant began experimenting on little Joshua, marrying Atlantean science with sinister sorceries…

The epic concluded in Warlord #21 as Morgan was compelled to battle an adult enslaved version of Joshua in ‘Terminator’. When he killed his own son, the Warlord’s heart broke and his love abandoned him… but as ever nothing was as it quite seemed…

Shell-shocked, Morgan lost himself in drink and bloodletting, battling werewolves and worse in ‘The Beast in the Tower’, subterraneans and cannibals in ‘The Children of Ba’al’ and tragically trysting with a love that could not last in ‘Song of Ligia’ before becoming a mercenary in ‘This Sword For Hire’, making a new friend in unscrupulous but flamboyant thief Ashir.

Together they accept ‘The Challenge’ of winning ultimate knowledge and as Deimos begins his next deadly assault Morgan relives all his past lives (which include Lancelot, Jim Bowie and Crazy Horse) whilst experiencing first hand the true story of ‘Atlantis Dying’…

The last issue in this compilation comprises two linked tales. In the first Morgan crushes alien horrors in ‘The Curse of the Cobra Queen’ whilst the long absent Tara, Mariah and Machiste are drawn into a time-warping encounter with the lost masters of ‘Wizard World’ – the opening salvo in another extended epic that you’ll have to wait for the second volume to enjoy…

The tricky concept of relativistic time and how it does or doesn’t seem to function in this Savage Paradise increasingly grated with many readers but as Grell’s stated goal was to produce a perfect environment for yarn-spinning, not a science project, the picky pedant would be best advised to suck it up or stay away.

For we simple, thrill-seeking fantasy lovers, however, these are pure escapist tales of action and adventure, light on plot and angst but aggressively and enthusiastically jam-packed with fun and wonder. These are timeless tales that will enthral, beguile and enchant. As the man himself constantly says “in Skartaris, always expect the unexpected”…

© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Dungeon Quest Book 2


By Joe Daly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-436-8

Cartoonist and animator Joe Daly has come a long way and won a lot of friends with his eccentric, eclectic comics narratives since he broke into the American market with the beguiling and memorable Scrublands in 2006. British born and raised in South Africa, Daly quirkily blends elements as diverse as drug-culture, dead-pan comedy, penetrating soul-searching, the irrepressible ebullience of youth, and wry social commentary in a dreamy primitivist manner reminiscent of the truly great Underground Commix (and, for me at least, captivating touches of Bryan Talbot in his Brainstorm Comics days) and absurdist art and music.

His latest, award-winning, on-going project Dungeon Quest is a delightful combination of nerdy discipline and pharmaceutical excess wherein a group of stoner Dungeons and Dragons disciples actually undertake a fantasy voyage to realms fantastical, dangerous and excessively violent.

Now with volume 2, the prime mystical quest to find and reassemble the incredible Atlantean Resonator Guitar takes Millennium Boy (the smart one), Steven (the capable one), Lash Penis (the steroid-fuelled warrior) and Nerdgirl (who doesn’t talk much) through the spider-haunted Fireburg forest to a hidden Masonic temple filled with fresh weapons, cosmic mysteries and even a few rewards and answers – at least to their secondary sub-quest: finding the gender ambiguous prophet-poet Bromedes and returning his magnificent penis-sheath…

Overcoming hunger, privation, a lack of latrines, ancient puzzles, river trolls, a sea of vegetable detritus and a giant leaf monster whilst taking every possible opportunity to get brain-bustingly wasted, the post-modern Argonauts make great strides in their mission and eventually achieve their secondary goal. Nevertheless, there are still miles to go and much to see, snort or kill before they quest is over…

Happily marrying the sensibilities of post-grunge, teenaged waste-lads as typified by Jay and Silent Bob, Harold and Kumar or the assorted boy loons in films like Without a Paddle or even Dude, Where’s My Car? with the meticulous and finicky obsessions of role-playing gamers and the raw thrill of primal myths, this captivating and wittily indulgent yarn is enchantingly rendered in solid, blocky friendly black and white and garnished with lashings of smart-ass attitude.

Strength: vulgar. Intelligence: witty. Dexterity: compelling. Mana: absolutely. Status: unmissable.

© 2011 Joe Daly. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Thor


By Jonathan Hickman, Carlos Pacheco & Dexter Vines (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-484-3

In 2000, when Marvel retooled their traditional continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers than the 1960s Lee/Kirby/Ditko ongoing monolith, they started with the most popular characters and only gradually added analogues for the established characters and trademarks.

Even when the Avengers finally appeared as the Ultimates, readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of the alternative heroes and villains – especially the wild, hammer-wielding warrior who couldn’t decide if he was Thorlief Golmen, mental patient, psychiatric nurse and anti-American radical protester or Thor, ancient Norse god of Thunder and battle.

After many struggles against his malicious, reality-warping brother Loki, the immensely powerful Thor is found here as a patient under the care of the European Union Super Soldier program. When his doctors call in linguistic expert and psychotherapist Donald Blake the true and fantastic story of his origins unfold…

Eons ago Asgard was a fantastic place of adventure and glory; an ideal paradise for the young warrior-brothers Balder, Thor and Loki to fight, carouse and enjoy life. But even gods grow older and apart…

The time is just prior to the start of World War II Nazi Occult scientist: Baron Zemo leads an army against Asgard, having already allied himself with the gods’ greatest enemies, the Frost Giants…

All is not as it seems however, and Zemo is no mortal invader. Moreover his intention is to end all the gods and bring about Ragnarok… and despite the magnificent heroics of the Norse deities he succeeds. But now it is revealed that the brothers did not die and were reborn in mortal form on Earth…

Now as an Age of Supermen begins the brothers awake… and one of them is mad…

Compellingly scripted by Jonathan Hickman and beautifully illustrated by Carlos Pacheco & Dexter Vines this lovely yarn (originally released as miniseries Ultimate Comics Thor #1-4) could probably be a mite confusing for readers who haven’t seen Thor’s other Ultimate appearances and certainly is quite choppy in delivery as it in-fills the missing portions of those stories. Even so, this is still a hugely engaging adventure that could easily act as an introduction to those other epics and is well worth your attention.

™ and © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Thor: For Asgard


By Robert Rodi & Simone Bianchi (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-482-9

Once again a major motion picture adaptation has generated a host of supplemental comics product and as Thor thunders onto silver screens everywhere there’s plenty for established fans and freshly-interested parties to grapple with…

In this effective and beautiful re-imagining by Robert Rodi, illustrated with astounding imagination and beauty (if not always the greatest narrative or sequential clarity) by Simone Bianchi, the long dreaded Twilight of the Gods has begun and cracks are beginning to show in the heroic façade of the noble and mighty Asgardians…

Reprinting the six-issue miniseries published in 2010 under the Marvel Knights imprint the saga opens in the second icy year of the dread Fimbulwinter, with the shining god Balder long dead, all-father Odin long missing and Thor as Regent.

A better warrior than ruler Thor leads an embattled, increasingly contentious and disgruntled populace in punitive forays against old enemies such as the Frost Giants. All around them former vassal states are stretching long unused muscles and airing old grievances and his two closest advisors are at constant odds with each other…

With the snowy streets of Asgard awash with resentment, if not outright sedition, Idunn informs the out-of-his-depth Thunderer that the Golden Apples – source of immortality – are almost gone and with Spring and Summer banished, no more will grow.

Asgard’s enemies are gathering, led by a secret mastermind, Odin’s mysterious mission has gone awry and, in the gleaming city, mutterings have become desperate, traitorous acts. With even Valhalla, the glorious Hall of the Dead, threatened, and now murder in the streets, Thor needs all his powers to help him, but even his faithful magic mallet has betrayed him: it has been long indeed since the Prince of Asgard was worthy enough to wield the Hammer of the Gods…

With chaos and destruction all around can the hard-pressed Thor hold things together or would the truly heroic thing be to let Ragnarok come and start fresh amid the ruins…?

Bleak, subtly allegorical and utterly enchanting, this moody epic of endings and new beginnings is a powerful tale of a deftly different pantheon that will delight newcomers to the character but possibly irritate long-term Marvelites.

Moreover, by ending on a foreboding note – completists should take heed – the tale is not completely done and there may be more to follow…

™ and © 2010 & 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Showcase Presents Eclipso


By Bob Haney, Lee Elias, Alex Toth & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2315-1

Although it’s generally accepted that everybody loves a good villain they seldom permit them the opportunity of starring in their own series (except perhaps in British comics, where for decades the most bizarre and outrageous rogues such as Charlie Peace, Spring-Heeled Jack, Dick Turpin, Von Hoffman or The Dwarf were seen as far more interesting than mere lawmen).

However when America went superhero crazy in the 1960s (even before the Batman TV show sent the entire world into a wild and garish “High Camp” frenzy) DC converted all of its anthology titles into character-driven vehicles and long-running paranormal investigator Mark Merlin suddenly found himself sharing the cover spot with a costumed but very different kind of co-star.

Breathing new life into the hallowed Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde concept, Bob Haney and Lee Elias debuted ‘Eclipso, The Genius Who Fought Himself’ in House of Secrets #61, cover-dated July-August 1963, the saga of solar scientist Bruce Gordon who was cursed to become host to a timeless Evil.

Whilst observing a solar eclipse on tropical Diablo Island, Gordon was attacked and wounded by a crazed witchdoctor named Mophir, wielding a black diamond. As a result whenever an eclipse occurred Gordon’s body was possessed by a demonic, destructive alter ego with incredible powers and malign hyper-intellect. The remainder of the first instalment showed how the intangible interloper destroyed Gordon’s greatest achievement: a futuristic solar-powered city.

The format established, Gordon, his fiancé Mona Bennett and her father, who was also Gordon’s mentor, pursued and battled the incredible Eclipso and his increasingly astounding schemes. At least he ha a handy weakness: exposure to sudden bright lights would propel him back to his cage within Bruce Gordon…

‘Duel of the Divided Man’ saw the helpless scientist attempting to thwart the uncontrollable transformations by submerging to the bottom of the Ocean and exiling himself to space – to no effect, whilst in ‘Eclipso’s Amazing Ally!’, illustrated by the legendary Alex Toth, the malignant presence manifests when an artificial eclipse and lab accident frees him entirely from Gordon’s body. Against the backdrop of a South American war Gordon and Professor Bennett struggled to contain the liberated horror but all was not as it seemed…

Issue #64 ‘Hideout on Fear Island’ saw Gordon, Mona and Bennett hijacked to a Caribbean nation inundated by giant plants for an incredible clash with giant robots and Nazi scientists. Naturally when Eclipso broke out things went from bad to worse…

‘The Man Who Destroyed Eclipso’ had the Photonic Fiend kidnap Mona before a deranged physicist actually separated Eclipso and Gordon in a wild scheme to steal a nuclear missile, whilst the threat of a terrifying alien omnivore forced heroes and villain to temporarily join forces in ‘The Two Faces of Doom!’

‘Challenge of the Split-Man!’ found Gordon and Eclipso once more at odds as the desperate scientist returned to Mophir’s lair in search of a cure before inexplicably following the liberated villain to a robot factory in Scotland.

Veteran cartoonist Jack Sparling took over the artist’s role with #68 wherein ‘Eclipso’s Deadly Doubles!’ revealed how Gordon’s latest attempt to effect a cure only multiplied his problems, after which ‘Wanted: Eclipso Dead or Alive!’ found the beleaguered scientist hired by Scotland Yard to capture himself – or at least his wicked and still secret other self…

‘Bruce Gordon, Eclipso’s Ally!’ returned the long suffering trio to Latin America where an accident robbed Gordon of his memory – but not his curse, leading to the most ironic alliance in comics, ‘The Trial of Eclipso’ had the periodically freed felon finally captured by the police and threatening to expose Gordon’s dark secret and ‘The Moonstone People’ stranded the Bennetts, Gordon and Eclipso on a lost island populated by scientists who hadn’t aged since their own arrival in 1612…

Even such a talented writer as Bob Haney occasionally strained at the restrictions of writing a fresh story for a villainous protagonist under Comics Code Restrictions and the later tales became increasingly more outlandish after ‘Eclipso Battles the Sea Titan’ wherein a subsea monster threatened not just the surface world but also Eclipso’s ultimate refuge – Bruce Gordon’s body…

Another attempt to expel or eradicate the horror inside accidentally created a far more dangerous enemy in ‘The Negative Eclipso’ after which a criminal syndicate, fed up with the Photonic Fury’s disruption of their operations, decreed ‘Eclipso Must Die!’

It had to happen – and did – when Mark Merlin (in his superhero persona of Prince Ra-Man) met his House of Secrets stable-mate in the book-length thriller ‘Helio, the Sun Demon!’ (#76, with the concluding second chapter drawn by the inimitable Bernard Baily) wherein Eclipso created a fearsome, fiery solar slave and the Bennetts teamed with the enigmatic super-sorcerer to free Bruce and save the world from flaming destruction.

All-out fantasy subsumed suspense in the strip’s dying days with aliens and creatures abounding, such as ‘The Moon Creatures’ which Eclipso grew from lunar dust to do his wicked bidding or the hidden treasure of Stonehenge that transformed him into a ‘Monster Eclipso’.

Issue #79 featured a return match for Prince Ra-Man in ‘The Master of Yesterday and Tomorrow!’ with Baily again pitching in to tackle an extended epic wherein Eclipso got his scurrilous hands on a selection of time-bending trinkets, whilst #80 (October 1966) ended the series with no fanfare, no warning and no ultimate resolution as ‘The Giant Eclipso!’ pitted the fade-away fiend against mutants, cops and his own colossal doppelganger.

Not everything old is gold and this quirky, exceedingly eccentric collection of comics thrillers certainly won’t appeal to everyone. However there is a gloriously outré charm and fanciful delight in these silly but absorbing sagas if you’re of an open minded mien, and the art of Elias, Toth, Sparling and Baily has never looked more vibrant or effective than in this crisp and splendid black and white collection.

Not for him or them then, but perhaps this book is for you…

© 1963-1966, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Richard Corben Complete Works volume 3: Rowlf/Underground


By Richard Corben and various (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-031-6

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest living proponents of comic strip storytelling: springing, as so many have, from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in sequential narrative with an unmistakable style and vision. He is equally renowned for his mastery of the airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and his delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontented older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Mummy and her lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Shocking, rebellious, pharmacologically-enhanced sensibilities and unconventional lifestyles, acting on creative impulses honed by 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ Duck tales and other classy early strips called out to young artists like Corben, who responded in kind, in a variety of small-press publications including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own mag, Fantagor.

Often signing with his sardonic pseudonym “Gore”, Corben’s work increasingly began to appear in more professionally produced venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing’s Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and graphically outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He also famously re-coloured a number of reprinted strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal. Soon he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped making comics but preferred his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

This regrettably out-of-print collection is the last of three collecting his early efforts and includes his longest and most ambitious tale of those learning years, but before that the appetite is whetted by the surreal black and white parable ‘When Dreams Collide’ (1970) wherein a repressed priest and a free-spirited flower-child share a bus ride and a daydream and ‘Bug’, a far nastier science fiction fantasy with a hidden message for anybody tempted to play house outside their species…

‘Rowlf’ was first crafted in 1971 and reworked in 1979 into the full-colour saga presented here. Ambitious and more emotionally multilayered, it follows the troubled life of Princess Maryara, whose only friend is her dog. Father wants to marry her off to a pompous royal jackass and to that end she is dragged off to the local wizard who has a fine line in transformation spells for reluctant things and people…

When technological demons invade and kidnap Maryara, faithful Rowlf defends her as best he can but is no match for their guns and tanks. However when the dog stumbles into one of the wizard’s spells the bizarre human/canine hybrid that results is a far more formidable proposition. One thing hasn’t changed though – Rowlf’s unfailing devotion to the lost princess. He will find her and face any threat to rescue her…

This impressive and touching 32 page yarn is followed by ‘Mangle, Robot Mangler’, a sexy, seditious monochrome parody of the classic comicbook hero, followed by an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s eerie suspense thriller ‘The Rats in the Walls’: a grisly psychological terror-tale of fallen castles and inherited horrors.

This volume closes with a splendidly dark and seductive pastiche of the genre in ‘A Gothic Tale’, produced in collaboration with Tom Veitch, stuffed with nuns, covens, family secrets and shocking twists…

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, Corben’s infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, extreme violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – and there’s plenty of all that in here. However this volume also shows hints of the narrative maturity which helped reshape our art-form so the fact that so much of his canon is currently unavailable in English is an unbearable calamity. Not only are these early works long overdue for a definitive re-issue but all his rude, riotous, raucously ribald revels need to be re-released now…
© 1970-1987 Richard Corben. Collection © 1987 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.